"On Deck" in Polk County

[michaelsbus]

OK, this has me scratching my head. Every so often during the day I've been hearing units paged out "on deck." I don't have a digital radio (yet), so I don't know if there's any further communication regarding it. I may eventually hear the unit paged to clear "on deck" status. In my mind I picture the crew start up the truck and pull onto the ramp and sit there ready to go...
I also thought that maybe there was an incoming call hung up in intake getting details, Clawson coding, etc. and dispatch puts the unit on standby at the station until the call details are finalized, but too much time passes after "on deck" without a call...
Perhaps the Polk guru can be of help...
And one of these days I'd love to see a list of the "Area" designations, like Area 1 is downtown Bartow, area 4 is Christina Park (540A and S. Florida Ave), Area 99 is downtown Lakeland, etc

 

[Bolt21]

We're scratching our heads, too. What freq/freqs or system are you hearing this activity on?

And who do the "Area" designations refer to?

 

[W8RMH]

"On Deck", a baseball term, sounds like what we called "On Standby". Units would be held at the station until a police unit arrived at the scene and confirmed a working fire or life threatening injuries prior to fire and EMS rolling. Personally, I never believed in this as it reduces invaluable response time, but some agencies operate this way (I guess they think they are saving gas). Then when we would finally arrive everybody would ask what took so long.

 

[ke4crc]

"Area" designations," are the areas of the county that EMS goes to to stand by like a zone coverage for an example when the Medic unit in Ft. Meade gets a call and it's a busy time of day the Dispatcher will call one of the 2 Medic units in Bartow if both are in station & tell them to go to area 1 which is Homeland (US 17 @ CR 640) I don't know all the areas around the county just area 4, area 1. area 22 I think is between Bartow & Eagle Lake. this is done to try & reduce response times

 

[n3obl]

I believe thats when they go to post at a certain location.

 

[Bolt21]

I understand what area designations are. Still wondering what agency, and what freqs or system you are hearing this activity on.

When I hear "on deck" in Hillsborough, it's usually a traffic enforcement deputy that is ready to go after the next speeder that the radar "zapper" calls out.

 

[kjhubb61]

On Deck

We started using this term "on deck" to let the crews standby at your station to handle calls in another area and be ready to leave the station in 30 seconds. They are trying to cut down on fuel cost by not having the units go to a designated point to standby. All this happens on A1 of the Polk County Fire Rescue P25 system.

 

[Bolt21]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.3.3; en-us; Sprint APA9292KT Build/GRI40) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1)

The OP stated that he didn't have a digital radio. Is he hearing this on VHF dispatch simulcast 153.995?

 

[michaelsbus]

Yeah, it's Polk Fire/EMS dispatch 153.995 They only recently started using the 'on deck' stuff recently. The 'Area' designations are stand-by points where available units (usually the EMS rigs) get moved around when things get busy to spread out the coverage. I figured it was a stand-by thing, but the term on deck just sounds weird...
And thanks, kjhubb61, you're obviously the Polk guru I referred to.
And yes, alas, I do not have a digital radio. Falls short of getting a job... just the paging freq, and sometimes hit the online scanner, though that sometimes goes dead for no reason (like last week in the middle of a working house fire)

 

[ke4crc]

FWD Message From : PUH

They are doing "on deck" for they will be the next one to get a call and doing away with standbys unless all hell breaks lose. Most of the citys have ALS engines now and this is a modified standby. Only unit that will be sent anywhere for standbys is Engine 651 as they are a paramedic truck as needed. The unit when on deck will have to get on the radio and tell dispatch that they are on deck and monitor radio at that point.